In the network culture, trust is fast becoming a “currency” as the sting of harassment, fraud and deception impact lives in profound ways. The typical headlines are cyberbullying and pedophile seduction of children.

And then there are bad actors after your money, as illustrated by the FBI news yesterday about Operation …

As children access Internet powered applications and tools, including social media (Facebook and MySpace) as well as popular search engines like Google and Yahoo, they can feel like they have everything they need to know.

The children of the Web are conditioned to ignore adults as credible sources of information and at the very best the voices of parents become “noise” to children. Taking charge of family life in this network culture …

I met Chris Owens, known as ODapt, at a community forum hosted by the Hip Hop Congress of Auburn. He shared the lyrics of one of his songs called “Lessons”.
These lyrics (below) reflect a profound understanding of the responsibilities of freedom and the realization that self-discipline is where the individual finds liberty – not by relying only on the hand outs from others.

Last week I met with Nikki Medoro, KFBK journalist and cyber-mom who just launched a parenting blog called: Mama on the Mic.

Medoro is a very dynamic, positive and tech savvy mom who experienced the Internet and mobile phones during her teen years. Her daughter is 18 months old and she also has questions about raising children in the networked world. Who will influence …

Marie Hall, Executive Director of BeMoneySmartUSA wants to instill in youth the wisdom and knowledge required to build wealth to make their financial future secure.
Ultimately Hall’s aim is to “Sucker-proof” children by instructing them to be money wise, and to think for themselves about what is a good return, not what some big institution tells them.

Dr. Debra Moore is the Clinical Director for Fall Counseling Associates in Carmichael, California. She has observed alarming trends in her business over the last generation.
Moore observes that kids today in general are more stressed as we are multi-tasking with demanding schedules and intense cyber communications of the Internet and mobile phone. “They are over scheduled, over stimulated and constantly multi-tasking.”
And parents are key.

We are all familiar with the tragic headlines of youth such as Phoebe Prince, a high school student in South Hadley, MA who took her life rather than face the bullying that she experienced. And more recently we heard of Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers

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The objective of Banana Moments (click here to receive updates) is to help parents rise above the noise and the fray of the daily, weekly, monthly press of information and life’s stresses of family business. Banana Moments offers insights and inspiration to reinforce your own family values and help you lead children in this network culture that pressures all of us with things that don’t really matter and are largely not true.

About Joanna Jullien

Joanna (jullien@surewest.net) and her husband have raised two sons in Roseville, CA. She has a degree from U.C. Berkeley in Social Anthropology (corporate culture). Her honors thesis was awarded the Kroeber Prize and funding from National Science Foundation grant. Joanna writes to help parents with the modern-day leadership challenges of raising children. She is a contributing writer for The Granite Bay View, the Press Tribune, the Sacramento Examiner, and editor of Banana Moments.